To A SOUND CONVERSION. 367 ed, though not directly : they chuse the way to hell, and love the certain cause of their torments : though they do not will hell itself, and do not love the pain which they must endure. Is not this the truth of your case? You would not burn in hell; but you will cast yourselves into it. You would not be tormented with devils for ever, but you will do that which will certainly procure it. It is as if you would say, I will drink this ratsbane ; but I will not die : I will cast myself headlong from the top of a steeple ; but yet I will not kill myself: I will thrust this knife into my breast ; but I will not take away my life. Just so it is with wicked men ; they will be wicked, And yet they would not be damned. But do you not know that God has by his righteous law concluded that you must repent or perish ? He that will take poison, may as well say plainly, I will kill myself, for it will prove no better in the end ; though perhaps he loved it for the sweetness of the sugar that was mixt with it, and would not be persuaded that it was poison : but it is not his conceit and confidence that will save his life. So if you will be drunkards, or fornicators, or worldlings, or live after the flesh, you may as well say plainly, we will be damned : for so you shall be, unless you turn. Would you not rebuke the folly of a thief or murderer, that would say, I will steal or kill, but I will not be hanged ; when he knows that if he do the one, the judge will see that the other be' done ? If he say, I will steal and murder, he may as well say plainly, I will be hanged ; and if you will go on in a carnal life, you may as well say plainly, we will go to hell. 2. Moreover, the wicked will not use those means, without which there is no hope of their salvation. He that will not eat, may as well say plainly, he will not live, unless he can tell how to live without meat. Ile that will not go his journey, may as well say plainly, be will not come to the end of it. He that falls into the water, and will not come out or suffer another to help him out, may as well say plainly, he will be drowned. So if you be ungodly, and will not be con- h
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